Take It
by xBlueCrossFirex
Summary: Eren and Annie musings.


A/N: Plot-less jumble of I-don't-know character interaction.

* * *

"Take it."

Eren twisted the ring onto his middle digit, furrowing his eyebrows at the struggle. The metal was light, and its sheer cold bit into his skin. He winced from the frosty kiss, but if his mentor could deal with it, then he would too. So he bared it.

"Not that finger."

"Eh…?" Eren hummed. "But it looks good on this finger, don't you think?" He raised it up in front of his face, flinching as sun reflected off the metal and into his eyes. "It looks like a bird." He then pointed a thumb to the back of his Scouting Legion cloak. "See?" The pairs of fingers on either side of his middle finger floated up and down in unison, mimicking avian wings in flight.

"That's—"

Eren's grin broadened into an ostentatious display of teeth. He was beaming for her praise; less than often he articulated sophisticated remarks, and this was one of his glorious moments excluded from that category.

"—ridiculous."

The criticism exited her mouth not as boorish sigh, but as a subtle jest. Stoicism lost its arid features to uplifted muscles and shimmering eyes of amusement.

"I'd like to see _you_ do better," Eren reciprocated. He grabbed the ring to take it off and gingerly pulled, but it wouldn't budge. Then he yanked.

"Ngh…!" he spat. "This lousy piece of craftsmanship—it's—"

He brought his arm back in an acute angle and, muscles braced, repeatedly jerked to-and-fro.

"—not—"

Friction between the ring and his finger began to displace skin, and multiple marks welted from the abuse.

"—coming off!"

Eren panted, spent. He rested the heels of his hands on his knees. In and out, he breathed heavily. Up and down, his chest heaved with shakes. Then Eren blinked. A familiar press of body heat against his was instantaneous upon contact.

"For one, your finger is larger than mine," Annie said, after grabbing his hand.

_I hadn't even considered_. Eren straightened, watching Annie's hands as they worked with his. Intakes of air decreased from gasps to languid sips, and his heart pumped in sync; steadily, respiration returned to normal. "Is there a second to that?"

"Second…" she muttered while tenderly teasing the ring, rotating it back-and-forth, "you didn't _think_about what you were doing. Your action was tactless." The circle eased up the end of his nail, and finally, his finger was free.

"I'll work on it, okay?" Eren stated as Annie sat on her rump and scooched her legs over Wall Sina's edge. He clambered down to join her, and the two settled side-by-side. A harsh current of wind battered them, but neither flinched as they drank in the blood-orange sky together. At that moment, Eren didn't want silence to be their spoken language, so he rummaged through his mind for a topic-starter. "Sunfall is pretty." He was smitten with his draggy one-liner. It wasn't eloquent, but it wasn't half-assed either. _Sunfall's original_, he thought. _Everyone uses "sunset," so sunfall should do. How's that for thinking?_

"Sunfall, huh…?" Annie angled her face to stare directly at the red orb. It would sink beyond the walls, beyond the earth, and beyond her body's reach. Far and removed from everything. But it will have risen instead of fallen the next time she saw it. She felt the fading rays seep into her marrow bone, and she desensitized herself from the world to revel in the sensation of raw energy.

Eren observed her serene fixation. He turned his sight to the sun as she had, but instead he shut his eyes with a disgruntled _hiss_. "How can you look at it? It fucking burns." Bombarded by the blinding light, he wanted to enclose himself in the darkest shadows of nightfall. Yet he continued to squint his eyes, the best attempt to discern what Annie saw.

"Was I?"

"You already knew you were," Eren scowled.

"If you're so interested in me, then here, stare at this." Annie leveled her hand to his face. "It looks better, don't you think?" Her thumb was erect, in resemblance of a horn. "It looks like a unicorn, see?" She folded her index finger—where the ring was now adorned—underneath her palm, and then wiggled her remaining three fingers in "unison."

"What's that supposed to be?" Eren attempted to ask in a rude monotone to mock her, but his imitation failed and came out as an immature snort.

"I thought you'd know, since it's unkempt like yours. It's its hair, majestically flowing in the wind." _Shwooo…_ whistled from her lips, mimicking groans of air.

He chortled. "That's ridiculous."

"…anyway," Annie said as she slid the ring off and returned it to Eren, "you're aware of what this is for, aren't you?"

"Transformation," sounded his declaration. He'd seen her manipulate shifting with the ring. He lolled it around in between his palms, remembering blood spraying from her sliced thumb, the gag wedged in between her lips, the pooling desperation in her eyes, locked with his—

"Stop indulging your fantasies and come back to me."

Her unassailable stare dissolved his short-lived reverie. "Yeah, sorry." He eased the ring onto his index finger. More than the smooth transition, Eren noted the warmth. It wasn't a sickly or constricting heat; it was a reassuring one of presence. His lips uplifted, and he smiled. What a fine piece of crafted metal.

"You're right about that, but its purpose exceeds physical manifestation."

Hands skimmed along Eren's jawline and aggregated pools of heat where they stationed beneath his ears.

His attention was commanded by somatic touch and imprisoned by an inescapable gaze. He brought tentative hands up, and the finger tips hesitantly hovered across the surface of her knuckles before lightly pressing against them.

His touch reassured her of his attention, and she continued. "It's a promise ring, Eren."

He made an "mm" to acknowledge her statement. He couldn't summon words; he was too enraptured by her eyes. What promise had she to indoctrinate him? She was there, focused on him, yet she seemed detached and far away.

She was remembering a time when a father once asked his daughter to honor a simple wish of his: to treat the world as an enemy. She remembered a shamed head hanging and rough, clasped hands on her shoulders. The promise was honored… loosely. Perhaps Eren would heed hers, perhaps he'd stray. There would only be one way to find out, and that would be to see it through. At least she hoped as much.

"It's a promise ring, Eren," Annie repeated. "So promise me something: promise me that you—"

_What was it, again?_

Eren's eyes opened. They felt sore, dry, and drained. He lifted a hand to rub crust from the corners of his eyes, and in the process, he found that his cheeks were wet. He wiped away the moisture and sniffed.

_I should remember, but…_

He fingered the lace cross-hatching his shirt, and eventually adverted his attention to the untidy fabric on his torso. His chest tightened into a twisting mass of aches, the sensation akin to a wound whose flesh had recently been extracted. It was hollow, missing a central piece. A similar void was present in his head, which was inundated with pounding pressure; he wasn't sure where it came from, but he did know he wanted it gone.

_… for some reason, I really just …_can't…

The more he tried to remember, the more static noise buzzed in his head; the more static noise that buzzed in his head, the heavier his mind pounded.

So he stopped trying to remember.

His gaze lingered from the darkness to a jagged amber crystal propped up in the center of the underground room.

It had felt so vivid. He could touch her, absorb her warmth through a shared item, appreciate the vibrations of her voice in his inner ear, converse about seemingly irrelevant topics… even her presence was enough to content him, and he hankered for it now. If anyone could teach him anything about Titan form, it would be her. But that option was gone and lost now.

She was intangible, just like the promise evading him.

"Ha, ha… that was a shitty dream."

Eren looked to his hands and examined them with unnecessary fervor.

He searched, fruitlessly. Even a light complexion wound around his finger would've sufficed.

His efforts laid to waste, and he knew they did.

There was no ring to be had on his person—there never was, and perhaps there never would be.


End file.
